Nicola Griffith - Always

“All the more reason to learn to fall properly. You won’t spend your old age terrified of icy pavement and polished tile. Squat.”

“But…”

“Squat. Left arm here. Right hand here. Tuck your chin. Breathe. In and out. Can you see the wall behind you?”

Pauletta said, “She’s so old and decrepit she probably can’t see it without her trifocals anyhow.”

Nina practically shoved her head under her armpit and I pushed her over. “Whoa!” she said, and shot to her feet, and realized she was in one piece. “Son of a bitch! I want to go again.”

And so we all went again. At the beginning of the third round I had them squat not so deep, and the fourth less deeply still. “Faster,” I said. “And this time push off from that front leg.” And they rolled merrily. “Now a volunteer to get on all fours at the front of the mat.”

Both Suze and Christie stepped forward.

“Two of you, then. All right.” I got them to crunch down next to each other, like cars lined up for Evel Knievel, and then I dived over them in a roll, smooth and soundless, and faced them. “To go over an obstacle, all you have to do is push off hard. Anyone want to try?”

Suze stood up. “I can do that.”

“Suze, remember all the…”

She just hurled herself over Christie and described an arc big enough to have overflown a Volkswagen. She landed a little harder than necessary but it was a sound, safe, sturdy roll.

“ Whoo! That’s a rush!”

Some of them were white-faced and tentative, some sweaty and boisterous, but one by one they threw themselves over one another and emerged unscathed. The tang of adrenaline rose through the room like mist and the air conditioner labored to hold back the building heat. I couldn’t believe how well they were doing. I’d expected at least two of them to refuse. I began to feel responsible for their brilliance.

While they were eager and brave I showed them how to step back and tuck a leg behind them and roll back over their shoulder towards an impact they couldn’t see coming. I showed them how to slap as they went down, to spread the impact and to boost the backward roll. I showed them how to come to their feet bent-kneed and ready.

Then I had them stand easy and breathe until the hectic light in their eyes began to die.

“Now sit.” Time to reintroduce the real world. “How did you feel working in bare feet?”

“Okay. I guess,” Christie said. Katherine surreptitiously slid her feet out of sight.

“Good. It’s how we’ll work from now on. The vast majority of attacks on women happen in the home. How many of you usually wear shoes in the bedroom or bathroom or even the kitchen? If something happens when you’re at home, you can’t say, Hold on a minute while I put on my steel-toed boots. You have to be prepared to respond at any time, to any situation: when you’re in the bath, on the toilet, in the kitchen. That means not feeling vulnerable. And that means sometimes practicing things that feel silly or uncomfortable or just plain ridiculous—so that when and if something unexpected happens, you can respond without thinking. It means thinking about situations that you don’t want to think about.

“Lie down. Imagine you’re in bed. You’re alone. A noise has woken you. What do you do?”

“Take my Louisville Slugger and go find the bastard,” Suze said.

“Can you reach out and find it in the dark?”

“It’s under the bed.”

“Can you reach down and grab it with your eyes closed?”

“Sure.”

“No clutter under there?”

“Well, maybe.”

“Do you sleep naked?”

“Yeah. So what?”

“When you have your bat, are you all right with facing an intruder naked?”

“Well, I’d put on a shirt, maybe.”

“Do you keep a shirt right by the bed, in a familiar place, folded in just such a way that you can pull it on in the dark and without thinking?”

She shook her head.

“So you wake naked, and the first thing you think is, Where’s my bat? Then you think, Where’s my shirt? And then you start to sweat because you’re thinking too hard, and you start to worry. By this time next week I want you to be able to tell me that if the power was cut in your house you could be at your bedroom door with your T-shirt on and your bat in your hand in less than three seconds. Or you can tell me you don’t need the bat or you don’t need clothes.”

“Do you sleep naked?” Sandra.

“I do.”

“Do you have a bat?”

“I don’t.” I’d never swung a baseball bat in my life. Cricket, yes, and hockey, and rounders, and lacrosse.

I realized I was smiling to myself, remembering the scents of meadow grass turning to straw in the summer sun, and shook myself free of the memories.

“So by next week: ready in three seconds.” Everyone was half sitting up. “Lie down again. So you’ve just woken in the dark. You’re alone. What do you do. Kim?”

“I’m never alone. My kids are always there.”

“In the same room?”

“No.”

“So what do you do?”

“Go check on them.”

“Do you get dressed?”

“I have a robe on the back of the door.”

“Always in the same place?”

“Always.”

“And can you cross your room in the dark without tripping over something? ”

“Done it a hundred times when they were infants. Besides, I could always put the light on.”

“You could.”

“But I shouldn’t?”

“Up to you. If you leave it off, you have an advantage: you keep your night vision, and if you’ve memorized where everything in your house is, an intruder won’t be able to find their way around as easily as you.”

“Okay.”

“So you put on your robe, you check your kids. Then what?”

“I dunno. Depends.”

I smiled. Gold star. “On what?”

“Well…” She put her hands behind her head. “I guess I could go check the rest of the house.”

“And leave your kids sleeping and alone upstairs?”

“It’s not upstairs. All one level.”

“At one end?” She nodded. “Then your job by this time next week: figure out the most efficient way to sweep your house, outwards from where your kids are, to keep yourself between them and harm. Assuming that’s your top priority.”

"Of course it is!”

“Right, then. And you should also think about what you’d say to your kids if you had to wake them and tell them there’s someone in the house.” All the mothers on the floor looked sick. Luz, what would I tell Luz? I made a note to spend some time thinking about the children issue. “Tonya, what’s on your bedside table?”

“A clock—”

“What kind?”

“Too small to beat someone on the head with.”

“Could you throw it?”

“I… Well, I guess I could.”

“What else?”

“Books, usually. And a pen or two.”

"Good for stabbing at the throat or eye,” I said. "But could you reach out in the dark and find them, precisely?”

“I guess so, yes.”

“Excellent. What else?”

She looked faintly embarrassed. “Usually three, four mugs of half-drunk tea. I take it to bed and then I fall asleep, and when I get up in the morning I’m too much in a hurry to—”

“Could you find those?”

“Not sure.”

“Practice.”

“I could throw them?”

“Yes. Cold liquid is a shock to the system, especially if it’s unexpected. But imagine you’ve just woken up and you’re lying there. You’re not sure if you’ve heard anything or not. What would you do?”

“Shout out.”

“Why?”

“Let whoever it is know I’m awake.”

“Good. It’s your house. If this is an intruder situation, you don’t need to be quiet. Unless you know it’s a professional assassin armed and ready to shoot, which I’m assuming is unlikely. Though, frankly, so is the likelihood of being attacked by a stranger. It’s more often someone you know.”